1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to identification bracelets and more particularly to temporary identification bracelets for use in environments in which the bracelets are applied by people other than the wearer and are exposed to moisture and common solvents.
3. Description of Related Art
Identification bracelets are used in many situations where subjects require short-term identification. Examples of the use of identification bracelets include identification of participants at meetings, of guests in a resort, of passengers in transportation, and particularly patients in hospitals or other institutions. In the hospital setting, proper identification is particularly important: it prevents patients from receiving the wrong medication or medical procedure and it allows hospital administration to track the usage of hospital facilities by a patient for billing purposes.
The hospital environment places extraordinary demands on identification bracelets:                They need to be produced where they are used, namely at the nurses' stations;        They often need to carry photographs and barcodes, both of which require high resolution to be useful;        Both the bracelet and whatever is written or printed on it must be resistant to water and other common solvents;        The bracelet must be comfortable for the patient to wear;        The bracelet must be sanitary;        In many situations, the bracelet must be strong enough to withstand deliberate attempts by its wearer to remove it; and        The bracelet must be easy for the hospital personnel to make and apply.        
Two main types of identification bracelets are presently used in hospitals and related institutions. The first type are bracelets that use paper protected by a plastic sleeves or an adhesive plastic film to make a band that is as printable as paper but has greater tear resistance and resistance to environmental degradation. An example of prior art of this type can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 6,510,634 to Riley, which discloses a multiple computer generated multi-web moisture proof identification bracelet. The Riley patent discloses an adhesive backed transparent film layer to encapsulate the paper strip. Problems with the first type of bracelet include the following:                Film sleeves and adhesive backed films are difficult for hospital staff to handle. The strip of paper must first be printed or written upon. The strip is then inserted into the film sleeve, the sleeve is looped around the patient's wrist or ankle, and the ends of the bracelet are attached using a metal or plastic clasp or adhesive on the sleeve. When an adhesive backed laminate is used, the printed strip of material is placed on the adhesive backed film and the film is folded over the strip of material to encase the printed strip. A bracelet can then be formed in the same manner described above. Alternatively, the bracelet is first fitted to the patient and then encapsulated with the adhesive backed film.        The plastic sleeve or laminate is often not tight enough to protect any paper or print within from being destroyed when the bracelet is immersed in water.        Barcode readers can have difficulty reading barcodes through the film sleeve or laminate. The Riley patent solves this problem with a die cut window in the laminate for the barcode. The drawback of this feature is that the barcode is exposed to the environment and can therefore easily be destroyed.        Where the bracelets have barcodes, the paper must be printed with laser printers. “Wicking” of the water-based inks used in ink jet printers makes the barcodes unreadable.        
The second type of identification bracelets are those made using a printable plastic strip. An example of this type of identification bracelet can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 6,641,048 to Schintz et al., which discloses a bracelet made of a strip of polyesterplastic. The strip is printable by a standard office laser printer. The strip has adhesive at both ends of its inner side and is made into a bracelet that fits closely to the patient's wrist or ankle as shown in FIG. 1: To form the bracelet from the strip of plastic 100, the end with the first adhesive attachment point 101 must be looped and pressed against the inner surface of the strip 103, creating an adhesive bond. The second adhesive contact point 102 is then looped over and pressed against the outer surface of the strip opposite 104. Problems with the second type of bracelet include:                The plastic strip must be printed by a laser printer and consequently cannot have a thickness beyond what a laser printer will accept. The Schintz patent discloses a 0.002 inch thick polyester film. A film of this thickness can be easily torn, either by accident or deliberately by its wearer, and can thus be easily removed by its wearer or lost. Stretching can further make the barcodes and other information unreadable.        The thin plastic used for the bracelet is also hard for hospital staff to handle, as can be seen from the foregoing description of how the Schintz band is applied. Moreover, the loop-back technique creates a space in the band where moisture or micro organisms can gather.        
None of the bracelets presently being used has a good mechanism for making a close-fitting bracelet. Attachment mechanisms have included the following:                Metal or plastic clasps; the problem with these is that the clasps are separate from the bracelet and easily lost.        Adhesive attachment mechanisms; these generally simply attach the ends of the bracelet to each other. The bracelet fits closely only where the patient happens to be the same size as the bracelet. Schintz solves this problem, as described above, but at the cost of a difficult application process.        
The printable plastic bracelets described in U.S. Ser. No. 10/857,214 are easy to apply, fit precisely, are durable, and can be printed with standard office printers. The present patent application discloses a variation on the printable plastic bracelets of U.S. Ser. No. 10/857,214 which may be applied and printed on in exactly the same way as the bracelets of U.S. Ser. No. 10/857,214, but which have two layers instead of one. One advantage of the two-layered construction is that the bracelet can include removable labels; another is that the layers may have different properties; for example, the layer that is on the outside of the bracelet may be particularly adapted to being printed, while the layer that is on the inside of the bracelet may be particularly adapted to minimize irritation to the wearer's skin.